MH-250 Antimc - It's Free, But It's Not CheapIt's Free, But It's Not Cheap, the solo debut from Los Angeles producer Antimc, is a nine-song collection of sprawling post-rock, dancefloor filling hip-hop, and inspired electronics. The album features three MCs (Busdriver, Cadence Weapon, and Saafir), three vocalists (Anthony Anzalone of the Mean Reds, Andrew Broder of Fog, and Mark Mitchell of Clue to Kalo), and shows a vast range of production styles. Antimc is the rare producer that is just as accomplished at writing melodies, playing his own live instrumentation, and structuring a song, as he is at programming a drum machine and editing on a computer. This versatility shows as he is able to span hip-hop to hardcore to electro to post-rock and capture standout performances from each collaborator, while always focusing on creating an expertly crafted song.

If music journalists are frustrated musicians, then are hip-hop heads frustrated rockers? Wishing they were slaying Download with Iron Maiden instead of a studio surrounded by buttons and dials? Maybe not, but Antimc’s potent brew of synthesised punk, frenetic trip-hop and wacked-out fuzzy post-rock beats definitely lends itself to the spandex'd legs-on-monitors pose. Veteran collaborator of underground hip-hop legends Shape Shifters and Project Blowed, Antimc jumps from genre to genre here, from street corner preaching boom-bap to dreamy summer field folk, always maximising his guests, including Busdriver and Andrew Broder of Fog. But this eclecticism flows naturally, and never feels scatterbrained or ADD-fuelled. - The Skinny